The National Urban Housing & Habitat Policy 2007 (NUHHP-2007) has been formulated keeping in view the changing socio-economic parameters of the urban areas and growing requirement of shelter and related infrastructure. The Policy seeks to promote various types of public-private partnerships for realizing the goal of “Affordable Housing for All” with special emphasis on the urban poor. Given the magnitude of the housing shortage and budgetary constraints of both the Central and State Governments, the NUHHP-2007 focuses the spotlight on multiple stake-holders namely, the Private Sector, the Cooperative Sector, the Industrial Sector for labour housing and the Services/ Institutional Sector for employee housing.
The action plan of the NUHHP-2007 states that the Central Government will encourage and support the States to prepare a State Urban Housing and a concomitant State Urban Housing and Habitat Action Plan, which may include passing of specific Acts the States/UTs for realizing the policy objectives through legal and regulatory reforms, fiscal concessions, financial sector reforms and introduction of innovative instruments, for mobilizing recourses for housing and related infrastructure development at the State/UT level. The Policy envisages specific roles for the Central Government, State Governments, local bodies, banks & housing finance companies, public/parastatal agencies. A copy of the NUHHP 2007 can be found here (size :.46MB) .

This Ministry has decided to revise the NUHHP, 2007 to reflect the changes in the recent past and taking forward the agenda of Government of India on “Housing for All” by 2022. The revised NUHHP, 2017 will incorporate various policy sub-components as different chapters to reflect the current direction of the Government of India. These may include shelters, skill development, rental/social housing, affordable housing etc.

Model State Affordable Housing Policy (2015):

The National Housing and Habitat Policy (NUHHP), 2007, with a mandate of providing “Affordable Housing to All”, envisaged that the States would prepare a State Urban Housing and Habitat Policy and also a State Urban Housing & Habitat Action Plan. The policy empowers the States to include passing of specific Acts by the States to achieve the housing policy objectives through institutional, legal & regulatory reforms, fiscal concessions, financial sector reforms and innovations in the area of resource mobilization for housing and related infrastructure development including promotion of cost effective building materials and technologies at the State level. The policy will also include an action plan and a pragmatic road map to achieve the objectives of the policy. A number of States have prepared their State Housing Policies and some of them have reported to be working on the same. In the recent past, however, the States of Rajasthan and Odisha have come up with specific housing policy aimed at affordable housing. The States of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana have also come up with the same.

This Ministry has been receiving requests from State Governments to provide technical guidance for Preparation of State Housing and Habitat Policy with special focus on affordable housing. In order to cater to these requests, this Ministry had developed a Model State Affordable Housing Policy for Urban Areas and circulated the same for comments of various stakeholders. Based on the comments the Policy is being finalized. Once approved by the Hon’ble Minister (HUPA), the same will be circulated to the States for adoption as a model document.

The aim of the Model Policy is to create an enabling environment for providing “affordable housing for all” with special emphasis on EWS and LIG and other vulnerable sections of society such as Scheduled castes/Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes, Minorities and senior citizens, physically challenged persons in the State and to ensure that no individual is left shelter less. The Policy further aims to promote Public Private People Participation (PPPP) for addressing the shortage of adequate and affordable housing. The target group for the said policy would be urban poor classified by MoHUPA, Government of India as persons belonging to the Below Poverty Line, Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Lower Income Groups (LIG) and would be applicable to all cities and towns including that of Census Towns, to enable planned affordable housing provision. The policy covers various kinds of housing viz. Ownership, incremental, rental/social, shelters and other forms of housing. The key interventions and action points are focused on land, finance, legal and regulatory reforms, technology support and its transfer, provision of infrastructure, satellite/integrated townships, institutions, capacity building and sustainability Concerns. The draft Model State Affordable Housing Policy (2015) outlines -

Urban housing shortage in India, estimated to be 18.78 million during the 12th Plan period with consequent increases resulting in increase in urbanization in future years, is an area of concern. Historically housing policy/programmatic interventions have been oriented towards home ownership, nevertheless, providing housing to all on ownership basis has proved challenging. Growing family needs had resulted in overcrowding and slum like situations due to lack of alternatives such as rental housing and absence of rental housing frameworks in the Country. In order to address these issues, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation has come up with the Draft National Urban Rental Housing Policy (NURHP), 2015. The vision of the Draft Policy is ‘to create a vibrant, sustainable and inclusive rental housing market in India’. A copy of the Draft NURHP is available here (size :.65MB) .

The Draft National Rental Housing Policy is aimed at promoting rental housing as an option for:

The destitute, homeless & disabled people.

Social Rental Housing for the socially and economically weaker (EWS/LIG) sections.

Affordable Rental Housing for specific target groups such as migrant labours, working women, students etc.

Rental Housing as a stop gap towards aspirant home buyers.

Institutional rental housing for working class

The policy will enable:

Formalization of Rental Housing through regulatory and legal frameworks

World Bank report on Ease of Doing Business 2015 has ranked India at 142nd in overall rankings out of 189 countries. Particularly, India ranks 184th out of 189 Countries in dealing with construction permits. In this regard, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviaiton is coordinating with various Ministries in enhancing the ease of doing business in respect of construction permits and the Hon’ble Minister had held meetings in February, May, August, September and October, 2015 with the key ministries like Environment & forests, Urban development, Defence, Civil Aviation, Culture and Consumer affairs for fast tracking of NOCs to housing projects and also addressed the Chief Ministers of states & UTs.

Most of the Ministries have agreed in principle to delegate the approval authority to the State/ULBs by setting in overall frameworks for approvals. The MoEF&CC has prepared Draft guidelines for environmental clearance along with a simplified checklist for environmental compliance by ULBs. The Ministry of Culture has signed an MoU with ISRO for survey and mapping of all the 3,686 protected monuments in the country thus enabling online approvals and mobile based apps. The Ministry of Civil Aviation is preparing Colour Coded Zoning Maps (CCZMs) that would enable ULBs accord approvals without the applicants going to the AAI. The MoUD has prepared Model Building Byelaws 2015 drafted with a chapter on Ease of Doing Business and the MoConsumer Affairs is updating the National Building Code. The objective of such exercise is to ensure approvals of projects within 30 days. A copy of the latest presentation on this matter can be found here.